Chapter 3 - My Mother Vanished, My Brother Became the Bait, and Gabriel Rossi Revealed Why My Father Had Feared Him
Harper read the letter three times.
Each time, the words became worse.
Her mother had disappeared. Leo was missing. The brass key had been stolen. And somewhere in the middle of it all, her mother had written that she had chosen which child would survive.
Harper could barely hold the paper.
“What does this mean?” she whispered.
Gabriel stood behind her, his injured shoulder held stiffly.
“I don't know.”
She turned on him.
“You always say that after you reveal something terrifying.”
“I didn't write the letter.”
“But you knew my father had been involved with your family.”
“I knew there were records. I didn't know your mother was involved.”
Harper shook her head.
“Everyone seems to know something except me.”
Rachel entered the bedroom with two officers.
“We found signs of a struggle in the kitchen. No blood, no broken furniture, and no obvious indication that your mother was injured.”
“That's supposed to reassure me?”
“No. It means we shouldn't assume the worst.”
Harper held out the letter.
Rachel read it silently.
When she reached the final sentence, her expression changed.
“Your mother mentioned a blue room. Do you know what that means?”
Harper tried to think.
Their childhood home had been painted yellow. Her grandmother's old house had a blue guest room, but it had been sold years ago.
Then she remembered something.
Her father used to take her and Leo to a small storage facility near the East River. He called it the blue room because the walls inside the unit were painted a faded shade of blue.
She had been eight the last time she went there.
“Maybe,” she said.
Gabriel watched her carefully.
“Where?”
Harper told them about the storage facility.
Rachel immediately contacted the task force. An officer searched the property records and discovered that a unit had been rented under Daniel Bennett's name until eleven years earlier.
The rental had been canceled shortly after his supposed death.
But a second unit, under a different name, had remained active.
Its last payment had been made three months earlier.
Rachel looked at Harper.
“Do you know the name Daniel used?”
“No.”
Gabriel studied the records.
“Show me the address.”
Rachel hesitated.
“Absolutely not.”
“Then send your people without me.”
“You're not in charge here.”
“No. But Roman Falcone is still looking for the same thing we are, and he has people who know the neighborhood better than your investigators.”
Michael stepped forward.
“We can handle the surveillance.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“Your surveillance didn't stop three SUVs from entering a crowded restaurant.”
“And your security didn't stop Roman from shooting you.”
The room went silent.
Harper looked between them.
“Can you both stop acting like this is a competition?”
Gabriel turned toward her.
She held his gaze.
“My mother is missing. Leo is missing. My father might be alive. I don't care whose people are better at surveillance. I want answers.”
For several seconds, Gabriel said nothing.
Then he nodded.
“Fine.”
Rachel assigned a team to check the storage facility. Harper insisted on accompanying them, and after a brief argument, Rachel agreed.
Gabriel traveled in a separate vehicle.
The storage facility sat behind a row of warehouses in Long Island City. The entrance was guarded by a small office and a rusted metal gate.
The sky had begun to clear, but puddles still reflected the industrial lights.
An officer spoke to the manager while the rest of the team secured the perimeter.
Harper stood beside Michael.
“Do you think my mother is involved in something illegal?”
“I think she knows something important.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Then why does everyone keep treating her like a suspect?”
“Because someone took her, and the people who took her were looking for the key.”
Harper looked toward the warehouse doors.
“What if she was trying to protect us?”
“That's possible.”
“What if she made a deal with them?”
“That's also possible.”
She sighed.
“You're very good at making everything sound terrible.”
Michael gave her a tired smile.
“It's part of the job.”
The manager returned with a ring of keys.
“The unit is paid through the end of the month,” he said. “The tenant used the name David Brooks.”
Rachel glanced at Harper.
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“No.”
They followed the manager down a narrow corridor.
The unit was located at the end of the building, behind a blue metal door.
Harper's heart began pounding.
The manager unlocked it.
Inside stood a battered desk, several filing cabinets, and a single chair. The walls were painted blue.
For a moment, Harper was eight years old again, sitting on her father's lap while he showed her how to add numbers on a calculator.
Then she noticed the photographs.
Dozens of them covered the wall.
Her father stood in several, sometimes alone, sometimes beside men she recognized from the photographs in Rachel's folder.
One showed Antonio Rossi shaking Daniel's hand.
Another showed Daniel standing beside a much younger Gabriel.
Harper stared at it.
Gabriel had been perhaps twenty years old, his expression serious and his hair shorter than it was now.
At the bottom of the photograph, someone had written a date.
Eleven years earlier.
The week before Antonio Rossi died.
Harper turned toward Rachel.
“You said my father was the last person to meet Antonio before his death.”
“Yes.”
“Was Gabriel there?”
Rachel examined the photograph.
“Apparently.”
Gabriel entered the unit a moment later, ignoring the officer who tried to stop him.
His gaze went straight to the picture.
He looked at it for a long time.
“I remember this day.”
Harper faced him.
“What happened?”
“My father was worried. He thought someone inside the organization was moving money without his permission.”
“Did he accuse my father?”
“No.”
“Did he trust him?”
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
“He trusted him more than anyone.”
“Then why did my mother write that my father asked her to choose which of her children would survive?”
Gabriel's expression changed.
He looked away.
“Because my father believed Daniel was going to disappear, and he was afraid someone would use the children to force him back.”
Harper stared at him.
“You knew?”
“I heard pieces of it. I was young. My father wouldn't tell me everything.”
“And you never tried to find out?”
“I did. After he died, the people around him were too busy fighting over the organization to answer questions about an accountant.”
Harper turned away.
She had spent years believing her father's death had been an ordinary tragedy.
Now every memory of him seemed to have another meaning.
A knock sounded from the doorway.
An officer held up a small envelope.
“We found this inside the desk.”
Rachel took it.
The envelope contained a photograph of a blue door and a handwritten note.
“Room 19. Only the child with the broken watch can enter.”
Harper's breath caught.
Leo had a broken watch.
It had belonged to their father.
When Daniel died, Leo had taken the watch from a drawer and refused to remove it. The hands had stopped at 7:19, and no repair shop had been able to restore it.
Harper had teased him about wearing a useless watch.
He had always answered the same way.
“Dad said it would matter someday.”
She looked at Gabriel.
“Where is Room 19?”
He studied the note.
“Not here.”
Rachel frowned.
“Then where?”
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
“There used to be a private archive beneath an old shipping office in Red Hook. Antonio Rossi kept records there. He called the rooms by number.”
“Was there a blue door?”
“I don't remember.”
Harper looked toward the photograph again.
The door was painted the same faded blue as the storage unit.
She knew they had found the next piece of the puzzle.
But she also knew something else.
If Leo had the watch, and the note said only the child with the broken watch could enter, then someone had deliberately connected her brother to the hidden archive.
Someone expected him to go there.
And if the Falcone family had discovered the same information, Leo might already be on his way.
Harper grabbed her phone.
She called Leo again.
This time, the call connected.
“Leo?”
Silence.
Then a whisper.
“Harper?”
She nearly collapsed with relief.
“Where are you?”
“Don't tell anyone.”
“Leo, listen to me. Are you safe?”
“I don't know.”
She closed her eyes.
“Where are you?”
He breathed shakily.
“They found me.”
“Who?”
“The men who lent me the money.”
Harper's throat tightened.
“Are they hurting you?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I can't. They said if I tell you, they'll hurt Mom.”
Harper's heart seemed to stop.
“They have Mom?”
“I think so.”
“Leo, listen to me. The FBI is helping us. You need to tell me where you are so they can get you out.”
He hesitated.
Then she heard a man's voice in the background.
“Give me the phone.”
Leo whispered, “I'm sorry.”
The line went dead.
Harper stared at her phone.
Then she screamed.
Gabriel reached her first.
“What happened?”
“They have Leo.”
Rachel immediately ordered the team to trace the call.
Michael moved toward the door, speaking rapidly into his radio.
Harper gripped Gabriel's sleeve.
“Please.”
He looked at her.
“I'll find him.”
“You don't even know where he is.”
“Then I'll find the people who do.”
She wanted to believe him.
But Gabriel had already been wounded trying to escape Roman. His organization was under attack, the FBI was investigating him, and the woman he loved had apparently betrayed him.
He had no reason to risk anything for Harper's brother.
Yet when he looked at her, she saw no hesitation.
Only determination.
He took out his phone and called someone.
“Find Benny.”
He listened.
“Now.”
Another pause.
“Tell him I want every address, every account, and every person connected to Leo Bennett's debt.”
Harper pulled back.
“Benny?”
Gabriel ended the call.
“The man who lent Leo the money.”
“You know him?”
“I know of him.”
“Is he one of your people?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“He works for Roman Falcone.”
Harper felt sick.
Her brother had borrowed money from a man connected to the same organization that had attacked the restaurant.
And the people holding Leo might know that Harper had helped Gabriel escape.
She looked at the photograph of her father.
For the first time, she understood why her mother had written that terrible sentence.
May you like
Her family had been caught in a war long before Harper knew it existed.
And now the people fighting that war had found a way to use her brother against her.
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